Life360 Family Locator

Life360 is the reigning leader in the GPS tracking arena. They’ve been around the longest and had a popular family tracking app for a while now. If you want the tried and true app, you’ve found it.

You can create multiple Circles that can be used for any group of people you want, like specific family members or friends. Then you can create Places and receive notifications when someone leaves or enters one of those places, like home or school.

Everyone in the Circle can see everyone else’s locations, and you can send off an emergency alert if something goes wrong that will notify everyone in your Circle.

The free version only allows you to have 2 Places and to have 2 days of location history, but the premium version, Life360 Plus, gives you access to unlimited Places, 30 days of location history, and 24/7 support. One subscription covers all the members in a single Circle (meaning you’ll need multiple subscriptions for multiple Circles, but not every member in a Circle needs a subscription). Life360 Plus costs $2.99 per month or $24.99 per year.

There’s also Life360 Driver Protect, which is an optional upgrade that gives you access to roadside assistance as well as helpful analytics about your driving. That plan costs $7.99 a month or $69.99 a year.

My Family GPS Tracker

For an alternative to Life360, check out My Family. This app is available not only on Android and iPhone, but also on Amazon devices and Windows devices. While Life360 requires an account, My Family ditches that in favor of an invite code, meaning you don’t have to register for anything.

You can see location history for up to three years in the past, and if necessary, you can force call someone (they automatically answer) or force their phone to take a photo. While that might sound intrusive, ideally it would only be used if something had gone wrong. And of course, there’s an emergency button for alerting the family of a problem and geofencing for knowing when someone enters or leaves a particular area.

The interface is modern, and you can adjust the colors however you like. It’s about as simple to operate as possible, without missing out on any functionality. Plus, it’s free, and there are no ads.

ZoeMob Family Locator

This locator app bills itself as more of a “family assistant”. It allows you to track family members, but it also encourages chatting with them over its built-in messenger and sharing lists and calendars.

Other than that, it’s a pretty standard app. You can track everyone’s location, check-in to places, set up specific location notifications, and set speed limits for family members who can drive.

Unfortunately, there are ads in the app that require an in-app purchase to get rid of, and quite a few reviews have complained of a lack of customer support. Still, if the others haven’t tickled your fancy, it might be worth a try.

KidControl GPS Tracker

KidControl GPS tracker is as simple as they come. You can set up geofences,track locations, and see battery percentages. That’s about it. It gets the job done.

The app is easy to use and setup without getting you lost in superfluous features. Unfortunately, it does have ads, but you can get rid of those for a lifetime KidControl Premium license for $19.99. That also allows you to create an unlimited number of geofences and view battery and location history for up to two weeks.

That might seem pricey, but it is a lifetime license, unlike Life360, which charges you monthly. However, it is important to note that it only works on Android and the Web — there’s currently no version for iPhone.

If you prefer a barebones solution and don’t have any iPhone users in the family, try the KidControl app.

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Maja

December 2, 2017 at 8:30 pm

Yes, but what if on the tracking cell phone GPS is off, or it's not on the internet?! How to locate that cell phone?! I found very simple, free app which locates cell phone depending which source is available! If GPS is off, it's uses WiFi or if it's offline uses cell tower...awesome app, if cell is not on the internet you will receive SMS text with location data...

It's on Amazon app store and try search "offline locations" or "without GPS". askLocation is the name off app!

Tried life 360 but the gps was to far off. Up to 3 miles off. Could not even tell if my child was at home. She has an iPhone and we have droids I hope that doesn't make a difference. Any suggestions on more accurate trackers?

Free child locator — Use the free cell phone service FREEDOMPOP with an old (compatible with their service) smartphone along with the Life360 app. Then you are all set with a no cost child location system.

Just keep in mind that the basic free cell service from Freedompop is only 500mb of data. Therefor, your child can not use the phone except for emergencies and it must be turned off at night to avoid going over the data usage.

Just a simple app is enough for tracking your kids android phone. Just go to Google play type "Ghostrack" . Its a simple app but very useful for GPS tracking. This little app doesn't even require internet connection to track down. I think Ghostrack is the best app for GPS tracking on Google play. Link is given below

The whole idea of "Tracking" your kids for "safety" is nuts.
The western world, contrary to what some parents seem to believe, is safer now than it was in the 70's.
With that in mind.... Back then I walked to school form age 5... took a bus all over the city after age 12.... was a crossing guard in elementary school... had a paper route since age 12.... had a dirtbike since age 7... etc.

Tracking ? Really ? Some parents have to chill out and get a grip.

Do your kids a favour, and help them learn to be independent and be able to think for themselves.
That, more than anything else, will keep your kids safe. Who knows it's may even prevent them from living in your basement at age 30.

Smartphone apps are great for teens who can manage to keep a phone without losing, crushing, or immersing it for at least a year, but anyone who has ever given a little kid a phone knows they'll be lucky if it lasts 2 months. I use Kajeet, they sell cheap, rooted, recycled 'dumb' phones that have gps built in and always-on. No fiddling with settings on the phone it just works out of the box. They have a clean web interface for locating your kid at any time and you can setup scheduled gps location as well. It runs off the Sprint cell network and his plan runs $32 bucks a month for unlimited text and 300 minutes talk, unlimited gps locates. Phone was a near perfect condition sanyo flipphone that cost $40.
We've had it for over a year and everything works great.

what about "Find My Kids. Footprints?" It's a pretty good app with a cheap annual subscription requirement. It even has goe-fencing and speed monitoring. AT&T also has the family tracker but that has a monthly fee associated with it.